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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (32550)	4/8/2008 6:35:00 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 219688

Canad coupled: Exports to U.S. fall amid shift in trade RICHARD BLACKWELL April 8, 2008 The United States now accounts for less than 80 per cent of the market for Canadian exports - the lowest level since 1992, before the North American free-trade agreement took effect - as Canadian manufacturers scour the world for new customers. Statistics Canada's international trade numbers for 2007, released yesterday, also show that China has leaped into third place among Canada's export partners, a sign of that booming country's increasing importance to our domestic industrial players. China displaced Japan as the third-largest buyer of Canadian goods, just a year after Japan was bumped from second place by Britain. The United States is still by far the No. 1 buyer of our products - it absorbed $354-billion worth, or 79 per cent of the total, in 2007 - although the flow of merchandise south across the border dropped 1.3 per cent last year. In 2002, the U.S. absorbed over 87 per cent of Canadian exports. Exports to the U.S. were hit with a double whammy last year, said Jayson Myers, president of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. "One is the rapid rise in the [Canadian] dollar, and the second is the decline in some of our key export markets," he said. With the U.S. housing market in freefall after the subprime mortgage crisis, and weak demand for consumer products and a slowing automotive business, Canadian manufacturers in those sectors have seen significant declines in U.S. sales, Mr. Myers said. Without higher energy sales, the drop in exports to the U.S. would have been sharper, Statistics Canada said in its report. Many Canadian companies that took U.S. markets for granted in the past are now forced to look further afield, Mr. Myers said. In 2007, Canadian exports to Britain were up 28 per cent, Norway took in 95 per cent more (from a small base) and exports to the Netherlands were up 32 per cent. The 21-per-cent increase in Canadian exports to China represented a boost from $7.7-billion to $9.3-billion. Over all, China took up 2.1 per cent of our exports in 2007. Canada has long been a supplier of commodities and semi-processed materials to China, and demand for those products - fertilizers, metals and chemicals - will continue to rise, Mr. Myers said. But we're now also selling more sophisticated products there. Among the companies that have made inroads in China is Xantrex Technology Inc., a Vancouver-based maker of electronic devices used in alternative energy systems that generate wind or solar power. Xantrex executive chairman Mossadiq Umedaly said yesterday that China will be crucial to the company's business, because the government there has set a very high threshold for the amount of power to be generated from renewable sources. "The Chinese market for our product is going to be so massive that in 10 years time it could eclipse the North American market," he said. "There's no way you would take a chance of not being in that market." But success involves a much more complex effort than just shipping product overseas, Mr. Umedaly noted. Last year, for instance, Xantrex signed a joint venture agreement to do some of its manufacturing in China, at a plant that will be built in Shanghai. That will allow the company to be cost competitive, and give it access to big government contracts. Peter Hall, deputy chief economist at Export Development Canada, said the jump in the value of Canadian exports to China has been helped along by the fact that prices of many of those goods have increased sharply. Oil and gas, base metals and fertilizers, for example, have all seen large price rises recently. Mr. Hall said he is surprised Canadian exports to the U.S. haven't fallen even faster, given the huge increase in the value of our dollar. Canadian exporters have been very resilient, he said. "It's surprising we've been able to hang on as much as we have."